Extinction Risk, Living Fossils, Asteroid vs Birds
Curiosity Weekly
Warner Bros. Discovery
4.6 • 963 Ratings
🗓️ 24 April 2024
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today, you’ll learn about a new study shedding light on what species are most vulnerable to extinction from climate change, why species of living fossils take their time evolving, and a new theory about how the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs also impacted birds.
Extinction Risk
- “New study reveals insight into which animals are most vulnerable to extinction due to climate change.” University of Oxford. 2024.
- “What is mass extinction and are we facing a sixth one?” by Tammana Begum. 2021. Updated 2023.
- “Mass extinctions, their causes and consequences: an interview with Douglas H. Erwin and Shuzhong Shen.” by Shucheng Xie. 2023.
- “Species and climate change.” IUCN. 2021.
- “Humanity’s Fitting Place on the List of Mass Extinction Events.” by Sam Baker. 2018.
Living Fossils
- “Study of slowly evolving ‘living fossils’ reveals key genetic insights.” by Mike Cummings. 2024.
- “A New Discovery Reveals Why Darwin’s ‘Living Fossil’ Keeps Defying Evolution.” by Tim Newcomb. 2024.
- “Giraffe Evolution.” by Adam Atwood. 2024.
Asteroid vs Birds
- “An Asteroid Wiped Out Dinosaurs. Did It Help Birds Flourish?” by Carl Zimmer. 2024.
- “Dust Might Have Snuffed Out the Dinosaurs.” by Miriam Fauzia. 2023.
- “How Did Birds First Take Off?” by Carl Zimmer. 2023.
- “Genomes, fossils, and the concurrent rise of modern birds and flowering plants in the Late Cretaceous.” by Shaoyuan Wu, et al. 2024.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, you're about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from Discovery. |
| 0:09.0 | Time flies when you learn the super cool stuff. |
| 0:11.0 | I'm Nate. |
| 0:12.0 | And I'm Callie. If you're dropping it for the first time |
| 0:13.7 | welcome to curiosity where we aim to blow your mind by helping you to grow your mind. |
| 0:17.6 | If you're a loyal listener, welcome back. Today you'll learn about a new study |
| 0:21.0 | shedding light on what species are most vulnerable to extinction from climate change, |
| 0:26.2 | why species of living fossils take their time evolving, |
| 0:30.0 | and a new theory about how the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs also impacted birds. |
| 0:35.4 | Let's jump into it. |
| 0:37.0 | We celebrated Earth Day earlier this week, so it seems fitting that we're talking about |
| 0:41.2 | the mass extinction event we're likely facing. |
| 0:43.7 | I'm not trying to be all doom and gloom, but it is important to look reality in the face so we can try |
| 0:49.5 | and have some positive impact. |
| 0:51.2 | Uh-huh, yeah, you got me nervous now. Well, stick with me on this one. By some |
| 0:56.3 | estimates, nearly three quarters of all life on the planet is at risk of going |
| 1:00.6 | extinct. But here's the thing, this isn't the first mass extinction |
| 1:04.6 | event. Yeah, I mean we obviously don't see all that many dinosaurs walking |
| 1:08.7 | around these days. Exactly, so a mass extinction event is typically described as a period of time when |
| 1:15.2 | Dramatically more species go extinct than would usually go extinct by some measures |
| 1:21.0 | That would mean 75% of species over the course of a couple million years. |
| 1:26.4 | And this one is happening faster in that though, right? Those three quarters of all life on the planet |
... |
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